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Have you noticed how cool the weather has been this May? I don’t know about you but it seems kind of odd to wake up on May 16th and it’s only 38 degrees outside. We will have to see what June has in store for us. An older women that I met at our local Antique Mall mentioned that this is the first time she can remember wearing a coat to a graduation ceremony.

Also, congratulations to all the 2009 Graduates! It is an exciting and challenging time to be graduating. I’m sure all of them will be up for the challenge and will come out on the other side of this stonger and better prepared for the future.

A special congratulations to the Kansas University Graduates! Rock Chalk Jayhawks!!

Here is a Quick List of Quit Smoking sites on the internet. This is by no means a complete list but some of my favorites that helped me along the way:

QuitNetWhyQuitAmerican Cancer Society -Nationwide network of free local quit lines at 800-QUITNOW, questions answered by e-mail, message boards, brochures, other information on quitting smokingAmerican Lung Association -800-LUNG-USA-Freedom From Smoking online program, information about quitting smoking, facts about lung diseases and treatments, moreChantixSmokefree.govNational Cancer Institute -877-44U-QUIT-Detailed information about tobacco and how to quit, surgeon general’s reports, live messaging service at Cancer.gov/HelpNicotine-Anonymous.org -415-750-0328-List of local meetings in the United States and worldwide, publications in nine languages

On January 1, 2009 it was one year without a cigarette. According to Quitnet.com that is equal to
Your Quit Date is: 1/1/2008 10:00:00 AM
Time Smoke-Free: 371 days, 7 hours, 10 minutes and 16 seconds
Cigarettes NOT smoked: 12995
Lifetime Saved: 3 months, 9 days, 6 hours

Now that is awesome! Thanks to Chantix, lots of prayers, and good old determination, I haven’t given in to any cravings to smoke for over a year! It is truly a miracle and I am soooo grateful.

I was scared that I couldn’t quit. It seemed I was doomed to a short life of smoking forever. Then a long came Chantix and I tried it a couple of times. The first time it made me sick and I thought. Forget it. I don’t want to throw up all the time. It’s not worth that!! Then I remembered that Chemotherapy makes you throw up. There are no easy choices here. So I tried it again and this time I resolved myself to the fact that indeed I was going to throw up and I would just have to change the way I walked into my building at work so there was bushes near by to vomit in so now one would see me. Yuk, I know but…I was determined to quit this time. I didn’t care if I threw up every day, I knew I had to quit. I wanted to quit.

Fortunately, the nausea doesn’t last that long and I never did vomit in the bushes. But, the fact that I was willing to do that, to go to any length to quit smoking was something I had never done before.

I gained weight pretty fast, like 20 pounds the first month. The second month I gained 7 pounds and that was it. I have not gained or lost any more weight. Losing weight, depriving myself of anything is not on my agenda today. Today, I don’t smoke cigarettes. Period. That’s it. I’ll diet, deprive myself of food or chocolate later. I suppose if I gain any more weight I might have to think about a ‘Diet’, but not now. As long as I am eating healthy and walking a couple of miles a day, then I’m not worried. I read once that a person who quits smoking would have to gain 70 lbs. to do the damage to their heart, etc. that smoking does. Wow! 27 lbs is a long way from 70!

I’ll write more later. I plan to include tips and “How to’s” the entire month of January. So check back often. And if you have started with Chantix, hang in there. It really does work.

Smoke Free 27 days!

I am curious about the desire to improve oneself. Why is it that some people have the need to better themselves — i.e., quit smoking, start exercising, eat healthier — and some people are on ‘self-destruct’? Actually, I have been on both sides of this coin. It comes down to self-love or self-hate, depending on where you are at. Look at Brittney Spears, it’s not hard to see that she doesn’t love herself right now. Oh I believe she loves her boys, but until she can love herself, she has nothing to offer them.

When I was on self-destruct, I was so ‘self’ absorbed that all I could think about was myself. I loved my children but, I was not capable of showing that love or contributing anything that would benefit them at the time. Alcohol was what I loved the most. It’s hard to admit that it consumed my every thought, action, and feeling. My life was all about Alcohol and I can say the same about cigarettes

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Being a slave to a chemical like nicotine or alcohol is being on self-destruct. It’s like a slow suicide so it is not surprising that a lot of smokers are depressed people. When we smoke we are self medicating our depression. Nicotine is an upper so it works for us. When we quit, we get depressed. Some of us get dangerously depressed. Suicidal thoughts, no hope, and crying constantly. These are all experiences I have had when I’ve tried to quit smoking in the past. This time it is different. The Chantix has made it so that I can feel somewhat normal while not ingesting Nicotine into my blood stream. I am on an anti-depressant so I am anxious to see what happens to me after 12 weeks on Chantix. Will I crash and smoke again? God, I pray I don’t. I have come too far and learned too much during this quit to go back to smoking. And smoking again will absolutely crush my self-esteem–what little bit I have gotten since I quit–and that would depress me all the more.

Now that I am on the other side, self-love, it has become clear to me of one major difference between self-hate and self-love. God. He was nowhere in my life when I was abusing Alcohol. I have struggled with a ‘conscious contact’ with Him during my sobriety. I try to remember to ask Him to Please keep me Sober in the morning and Thank Him at night for doing so. Having a scheduled time in the morning for my readings and meditation helped me with this but, since I started attending 7:00 a.m. meetings, I have let that go by the wayside. The last few weeks I haven’t been able to attend the early meetings so I went to a different group on Friday night. Everything in my life has changed since I quit smoking so I shouldn’t be surprised my meeting schedule would change also. When I quit drinking, everything in my life changed also. Doing things differently is what going from self-hate to self-love is all about. I need to be more open to the changes that are happening in my life. Not just the physical, which is all I have been focusing on for the last 27 days, but the spiritual and mental changes too.

Quitting smoking has made me crave a more spiritual life. I feel that my heart is open to God and there isn’t any ‘clogged arteries’ anymore coming from guilt or hating myself. Loving me, being comfortable in my own skin, is something I have searched for in bottles and in packs all my life but, I could never find. I have found it because God is in my life today whether I am ‘conscious’ of Him or not, He is here with me at all times. He loves me, which means I am lovable, which means I deserve to be loved. That love comes from me, loving myself, taking care of myself, so that I now have love to give to my children and family, plus any other people I meet along this journey that I am on. It’s true, ‘you can’t love someone, until you love yourself.’

This post started out to be about smoking and early menopause. This happened to me so I thought it would be interesting to research. Well, as it turns out I found out a lot more about women and smoking then I really wanted to know. It’s scary girls, so especially you teenagers, PLEASE DON’T EVER LITE UP!

Did any of you know that smoking affects your ESTROGEN LEVEL? There are significantly lower levels of estrogens noted in many studies of women smokers. Also, lower levels of estrogens causes early menopause. Therefore, when we quit our estrogen levels increase hence, QUIT ZITS. It may be why we gain weight also. I feel like I am going through puberty again. Does this mean I will go through Menopause again? I need more answers. A call to my Doctor is definately in order.

Anyway, here are some studies done on women regarding smoking and our estrogen levels and the problems that can arise, whether we quit or not.

This is an excerpt from the International Journal of Cancer, 2004 (Vol. 112) (No. 2) 324-328

“And finally, as we have seen, smokers who are on the pill have as much as 20 times the risk as nonsmokers on the pill. This may have to do with the fact that cigarette smoking alters the estrogen metabolism in premenopausal women. The resulting lower estrogen levels cause premature menopause, which in itself increases the risk of coronary heart disease. All in all, because of the high prevalence of smoking among women, eliminating this habit would probably be the single most effective method of reducing their incidence of heart disease.”

And this is from the Document Title: International Journal of Cancer, 2004 (Vol. 112) (No. 2) 324-328

“We conclude that ever-smoking was associated with the risk of breast cancer in women with high levels of estrone, and that ex-smoking was associated with breast cancer in women with high levels of estrone or estradiol.”